Today's consumers are exposed to increasing varieties and amounts of information from an increasing number of sources. Many times, a consumer will have a television or other source of information playing in the background while performing another activity, such as reading an electronic book, texting a friend, or playing a game on a handheld device. Other times, a user may simply be walking back in forth from a room in which audio or video content is being played. Since the user is not paying complete attention to the media being played, the user might only return his or her attention to the media when there is something of interest presented, such as a commercial, intense action scene, song of interest, etc. If the user was not paying attention to the media, the user might not know exactly what it going on. In the case of a commercial, for example, the user might turn his or her attention to the commercial towards the end of the commercial when it is too late to determine the product or service being advertised.
In other cases, a user might be focusing his or her primary attention on an audio or video presentation, but might want to determine information pertaining to that presentation. For example, if a commercial for an item is on the screen then the user might want to find out other information about that item, such as where the item is sold or how much the item costs. If a user is watching a movie, the user might want to know the name of the actor in the current scene, where the scene takes place, or what type of shirt the main actor is wearing. While a user can attempt to locate the information by performing a Web search or using other such approaches, the consumer often will not have a paper and writing instrument available to take the necessary notes, and might not have enough detailed information to write down anyway. If the consumer is not able to take notes right away, the consumer might forget details about the presentation, or even what was interesting in the presentation in the first place.
Further, there is no existing way for users to quickly and easily share this information with their friends or other users. Even if a user is able to determine an identify of a movie of interest, for example, there is no easy way for a user to point his or her friends to a particularly funny scene or other portion of interest. A user can always search for information and attempt to direct others to that portion of content, but the amount of work necessary will generally prevent most users from providing more than general comments about the content.